Battling Bollington residents have taken to the streets to gather data in their fight to save their tip.

Last week, Macclesfield Nub News reported on 42 Bollington residents who gave up their time to collect their own data on usage of Bollington tip.

Bollington Household Waste Recycling Centre faces an uncertain future, being 'mothballed' in a matter of months.

Bollington tip, of Albert Road.

Now, the data from a week of surveying people going in and out of the tip has been disclosed by 'SAVE BOLLINGTON TIP' volunteers.

Macclesfield Nub News presented the group's findings to Cheshire East Council.

The independent number-crunchers, the majority being residents of Bollington, claim that the number of visits to the tip 'could be more than five times higher than the number given in CEC's consultation document'.

The questionnaire that the volunteers asked users of the tip last week.

According to Cheshire East Council, over a seven-day period in August 2022, 1461 people used Bollington Household Waste Recycling Centre.

It was previously understood by Macclesfield Nub News that Cheshire East Council's August 2022 dataset was for the whole month. A view held by the independent group. However, according to Cheshire East Council in an email sent to Macclesfield Nub News, these figures the figures provided to the council's environment and communities committee in September 2023 were actually for a week. (The same time period as the independent data-collectors collected their own data for.)

Bollington Town Councillor and former Town Mayor John Cadman Stewart said: "In September 2023, Cheshire East Council produced a review of Household Waste Recycling Centres in Cheshire East."

Between 17th - 23rd June 2024, a team of volunteers spent a total of 60 hours – every opening minute for a week – at the entrance to Bollington Household Waste Recycling Centre. Their aim: to collect data showing the number of visits made to the facility during the week; where each visitor lives by postcode; and how often they might use the Recycling Centre in a month.

"As a result of this, a decision was taken to close the Bollington facility amongst others in order to save costs. Within this document was a figure showing the number of people using the Bollington facility over the month of August in 2022. We believed this figure to be an inaccurate reflection of actual usage, so we set up the 'SAVE BOLLINGTON TIP' group to collect our own data. The results were eye opening.

"Cheshire East Council's figures suggested that 1,461 visits to the tip were made in the month of August 2022. Data collected by the Save Our Tip group showed a total of 1909 visits to the same facility in one week.

"That's well over five times higher than the number given by Cheshire East Council and, the group believes, has very serious implications for the lives of residents across Cheshire East, as well as for the environment. For example, if residents were forced to travel to Macclesfield HWRC, this could increase CO2 by 94 tonnes per year and cost users an additional £80,000 in fuel costs. And fly tipping would undoubtedly increase: Congleton [saw] a 34% increase following the closure of its HWRC. [Source]."

Cheshire East Council is also set to 'mothball' tips in Middlewich and Poynton.

Unverified rumours about what Cheshire East Council plans to do with the site following a closure is swirling around Bollington, however, Macclesfield Nub News does not have a first-hand source to support this.

A spokesperson for Cheshire East Council, said: "The council will not respond to unfounded and baseless speculation."

"As previously stated, the longer-term provision of household waste recycling centre services in Cheshire East will be considered by the council's environment and communities committee later this year."

Volunteer Wendy surveys a tip user.

The group of Bollington residents is now planning to put this information in front of 'as many influential people as possible', including Cheshire East Council members and politicians, in a bid to force a rethink about the tip closure.

Macclesfield Nub News recently quizzed the seven general election candidates for their thoughts on the future of Bollington and Poynton tips, hanging in the balance.

Cllr Stewart (Independent) added: "We understand that Councils need to make cuts. But we think decisions have been made using inaccurate data and would lead to potentially disastrous consequences."

A council-led consultation on the future of the tips shut earlier this month.

"Given that Cheshire East Council prioritises creating 'a green and sustainable place through reduced impact on the environment', it's our duty to explain to them how their proposals might have the opposite effect."

The group will expand its publicity activities over the coming days to include social media and other relevant channels.

It should be noted that this new data comes after knowledge that the tip's future was under threat, whereas this was not known in August 2022 when the Council conducted their data.

Cllr Stewart concluded: "Closure of the HWRC in Bollington could therefore have disastrous effects on the local environment (fly tipping, CO2), on local infrastructure and on the lives of residents in the area."

As of this morning, Bollington landmark White Nancy has been clad with 'SAVE BOLLINGTON TIP' colours.